Gun Rights versus Gun Control in the United States

Yeah, the problem with this strategy is that women eventually tend to be mothers. And for most mothers, 30K gun deaths > fun sport or fear of rape.

So what's the implication here? That men and fathers don't give a shit about people dying?

Uhh, that would simply be your misguided inference. MADD didn't imply that men don't give a shit about drunk drivers. The implication is that few things are as powerful, politically or socially, as a bunch of motivated and united mothers.

Rightly or wrongly men united, or fathers united doesn't carry the same weight. Perhaps it just seems like the status quo? Regardless, my assertion is that whichever side gets to the Moms probably wins the narrative.

Yeah, the problem with this strategy is that women eventually tend to be mothers. And for most mothers, 30K gun deaths > fun sport or fear of rape.

So what's the implication here? That men and fathers don't give a shit about people dying?

Uhh, that would simply be your misguided inference. MADD didn't imply that men don't give a shit about drunk drivers. The implication is that few things are as powerful, politically or socially, as a bunch of motivated and united mothers.

Rightly or wrongly men united, or fathers united doesn't carry the same weight. Perhaps it just seems like the status quo? Regardless, my assertion is that whichever side gets to the Moms probably wins the narrative.

When you go for the emotive arguments, saying 'mothers' implies children, and it is using their very name to scream "oh won't someone think of the children". People against drunk driving does not carry the same emotive implication, and trying to use reasoning to push a prohibitionist position is not effective.

Once you allow the discussion to be framed as 'how can you put your own fun and safety ahead of that of your children?', gun rights advocates will lose. That you are more likely to kill your kid by getting a backyard pool doesn't stop people from getting one because there is no major public push to frame the issue as 'pools kill kids - how dare you put your own fun ahead of your child's safety'.

Once you allow the discussion to be framed as 'how can you put your own fun and safety ahead of that of your children?', gun rights advocates will lose. That you are more likely to kill your kid by getting a backyard pool doesn't stop people from getting one because there is no major public push to frame the issue as 'pools kill kids - how dare you put your own fun ahead of your child's safety'.

Which is why this issue seems to be less about dead people and more about dislike of the object. Pools aren't disliked so no major push against them. People don't like guns... so a totally different way of framing the same end result emerges.

Actually, I don't know if it came up before in this thread or the last one (probably did), but the analogy between guns, irresponsible gun use, and gun violence respectively to alcohol, drunk driving, and drunk driving related accidents is quite apt. A large number of people use both guns and alcohol responsibly, but irresponsible use can have seriously detrimental effects.

In the case of alcohol, we try to reduce the externalities by banning the activity that imposes externalities, which is drunk driving (even if nobody gets hurt, the driver takes a risk of hurting people). We also make it socially unacceptable to impose these externalities. I'm all for both of these approaches. But nonetheless, there are overreaches: mandatory searches at drunk driving roadblocks, overly broad open bottle laws that force you to seal up wine bottles to transport them even if you aren't drinking, illegality of passengers drinking, illegality of sleeping drunk in your vehicle, ever-lowing BAC limits. There have even been pushes to mandate breathylizers in cars, which is strikingly similar to requiring guns to be "smart", and to ban beverages with sufficiently high alcohol content, like banning guns deemed sufficiently dangerous (whether or not they are). A vocal minority of people (MADD) are essentially neo-prohibitionists, using emotional arguments to push these increasingly restrictive alcohol laws.

Similarly, there are some gun restrictions that make sense, such as preventing people convicted of violent crimes from owning guns (at least for a period). But there are also overreaches. And a vocal minority will not be satisfied with balanced regulation of guns.

Coming back to some earlier discussions here, I think this analogy nearly perfectly exemplifies the reason I oppose burdening all gun owners with stopping gun violence, in ways such as requiring insurance, licensing, or registration. The analogous policies for alcohol would be silly because it's clear that one can drink responsibly, and IMO the proposed gun policies have the same problem.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a new ad campaign in 13 states this week to try to persuade moderate members of the Senate to support gun control legislation. The $12 million worth of ads released by Mayors Against Illegal Guns promotes universal background checks as a prerequisite for gun ownership.

In one of the ads a man in a plaid shirt and a camouflage hat sits on the back of a pickup truck, holds a gun and explains his views on gun ownership.

(SOUNDBITE OF AD)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: For me, guns are for hunting and protecting my family. I believe in the Second Amendment, and I'll fight to protect it. But with rights come responsibilities. That's why I support comprehensive background checks, so criminals and the dangerously mentally ill can't buy guns. That protects my rights and my family.

CONAN: That ad is running in, among other places, Louisiana, where it may be designed to try to convince Senator Mary Landrieu to support background checks. Senator Landrieu faces a tough re-election campaign come 2014.

Quote:

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: We're trying to do everything we can to impress upon the senators that this is what the survivors want, this is what the public wants, this is what the 900-plus mayors that are in our organization want; they're the ones who have to deliver safety to the streets every single day. I don't think there's ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly where Congress hasn't eventually understood and done the right thing.

Quote:

WAYNE LAPIERRE: He can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. They don't want him in their restaurants. They don't want him in their homes. They don't want him telling them what food to eat. They sure don't want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own, and he can't buy America.

Yeah, the problem with this strategy is that women eventually tend to be mothers. And for most mothers, 30K gun deaths > fun sport

Ignorant mothers are a problem. Your scared brain dead soccer mom is a problem. There are women who are cops. They have guns and kids, they are not panicked by the thought of having a gun in the house. Moms from hunting and sporting families do not panic at the idea of a gun in the house. Gun control is exploiting the "mom" segment is some very unethical ways. They want mindless emotional response, not critical thinking. "OMG this will kill your baby!". It is an attack that completely depends on keeping moms from getting educated. The denial of education for political gain is evil. Of course it could be argued that good education on the subject mostly removes the gun control arguments.

Tsur wrote:

Uhh, that would simply be your misguided inference. MADD didn't imply that men don't give a shit about drunk drivers. The implication is that few things are as powerful, politically or socially, as a bunch of motivated and united mothers.

Rightly or wrongly men united, or fathers united doesn't carry the same weight. Perhaps it just seems like the status quo? Regardless, my assertion is that whichever side gets to the Moms probably wins the narrative.

There are other lines that can be drawn to MADD. The big one is being ignorance and emotion dependent. DD is all in on emotion these days. If you can educate the moms and get educated moms identified as "good moms" and ignorant/stupid moms identified as "bad moms", you win. Sure you will have some that double down on the dumb and go to faith based reasoning but if you get a big enough paradigm shift the ignorant minority will be out in the cold. I also think loud, angry, united men have been just as powerful in the past.

And yet 90% of Americans and more than 80% of NRA members support universal background checks that Mr Lapierre steadfastly opposes and claims to speak for the majority of Americans in doing so.

This assumes that the poll respondents have the faintest idea what "universal background checks" even means.

I can't seem to find the post, but I'm pretty sure it was here where we discussed an article that was published in an Illinois newspaper. The piece was predictably anti-gun, but presumably in some vain attempt at appearing "balanced" the writer began to speculate that gun-rights advocates could be right and that requiring background checks at gun shops could just push criminals to the black market. This writer had just spent several paragraphs defending the wisdom of gun control legislation, yet they apparently had no clue that background checks were already required at gun shops. It was mind blowing.

I keep hearing pieces on NPR, and other media outlets, about some alleged loophole that allows "online purchases" of guns. I'd love to know what in the world they're talking about, because every time I've bought a gun online it had to be shipped to a local FFL so that the background check could be run before I could take possession.

I'd love to know what in the world they're talking about, because every time I've bought a gun online it had to be shipped to a local FFL so that the background check could be run before I could take possession

I'd love to know what in the world they're talking about, because every time I've bought a gun online it had to be shipped to a local FFL so that the background check could be run before I could take possession

I'd love to know what in the world they're talking about, because every time I've bought a gun online it had to be shipped to a local FFL so that the background check could be run before I could take possession

We can only speculate, because I've not heard them go into any detail about this claim.

They make it sound like you can go to the equivalent of Amazon and have a gun on your doorstep the next morning without a background check, which I'm sure does sound quite scary to those who don't know better.

I don't have a citation handy, but my understanding is that silencers were included in the National Firearms Act not because of gangsters, but because of poachers. During the depression there was a lot of poaching for what should be fairly obvious reasons, and silencers made it easier to hunt somewhere you don't belong.

There is apparently some Fish & Wildlife department testimony to this effect.

Quote:

While the Thompson SMG "Tommy Gun" and the Browning BAR were in use amongst some of the more infamous gangsters, my understanding is that pistols like the Colt M1911 and sawed-off shotguns were far more common. Obviously no one was going to ban common pistols of the era, but the latter may be the reason for the limitations on short barreled rifles and shotguns that made it into the law.

No; earlier versions of the National Firearms Act did ban handguns, and yes, the prohibition of short-barreled rifles and shotguns is a vestige of that attempt to ban handguns. That's why the prohibition on short-barreled longarms is nonsensical and should be rescinded.

Quote:

I'm no fan of the NFA, but I can at least come up with a rational explanation for why one would want to more heavily regulate automatic weaponry.

I'm always dispirited by the number of people who seem to think that automatics are fundamentally different from other types of firearms. They're not.

I'm no fan of the NFA, but I can at least come up with a rational explanation for why one would want to more heavily regulate automatic weaponry.

I'm always dispirited by the number of people who seem to think that automatics are fundamentally different from other types of firearms. They're not.

There's a case to be made that in a civilian context, every round fired should be a conscious decision on the part of the shooter. At what point does a rate of fire make something more akin to an area-effect weapon?

Whether automatic and burst fire weapons cross that line is a topic for discussion, but it's certainly less arbitrary than the arbitrary cosmetic features that gun-control proponents usually get worked up over.

Considering machine guns are about suppression more than about hitting a target, I would agree they are not appropriate for self defense, and could possibly be allowed in remote areas only, with special permits.

Burst fire weapons are similar, since in most classic SD scenarios, the chances of getting more than one shot in three on target are pretty slim. But again, in remote areas, special permits.

Considering machine guns are about suppression more than about hitting a target, I would agree they are not appropriate for self defense, and could possibly be allowed in remote areas only, with special permits.

Here we have opportunity for semantic confusion. A case can be made that the military role of a 'machine gun' is suppression of enemy action. But the U.S. legal definition of 'machinegun' is any firearm that fires more than one round with a single pull of the trigger. This would include any double-barrel gun that could fire both barrels with one trigger pull.

Law officers are accountable for all of the rounds they send downrange. Law officers are virtually never intended to 'suppress' enemy action. But law officers very frequently use automatic weapons for defense, and not in remote areas.

Although Houston law enforcement have apparently switched sway from the P90 PDW, that is an example of a weapon designed for automatic fire, and for which automatic fire is essential. Just as one pellet from a shotgun isn't intended to be effective by itself, one 5.7x28mm round is not guaranteed to be effective by itself. The light-weight, aluminium-core (non-lead) projectiles are very unlikely to penetrate further than intended.

Considering machine guns are about suppression more than about hitting a target, I would agree they are not appropriate for self defense, and could possibly be allowed in remote areas only, with special permits.

Burst fire weapons are similar, since in most classic SD scenarios, the chances of getting more than one shot in three on target are pretty slim. But again, in remote areas, special permits.

Treat them both as destructive devices more than firearm.

Perhaps, but you're focusing more on lack of legitimate reason to allow instead of lack of legitimate reason to ban. How often would machine guns actually be used in violent crime if not regulated at all at the federal level? I'd wager less than ARs and other semi-auto rifles, given their reduced effectiveness at hitting specific targets and propensity to burn an entire magazine at once. In certain rare cases they could be used in shootouts to hold the police at bay but those events would be pretty rare and police could wait out a seige and/or use an armored vehicle. So what's the purpose of strictly regulating these guns, other than that we're used to the status quo?

If they were allowed, small SMGs and burst, and full auto, capable pistols would be quickly picked up by gang members. Immediately. Only the very restrictive market, high cost and heightened penalties prevent that from being more common now.

If they were allowed, small SMGs and burst, and full auto, capable pistols would be quickly picked up by gang members. Immediately. Only the very restrictive market, high cost and heightened penalties prevent that from being more common now.

Aren't those weapons notoriously inaccurate and weak? If so, how exactly are they worse than semi-auto pistols?

If they were allowed, small SMGs and burst, and full auto, capable pistols would be quickly picked up by gang members. Immediately. Only the very restrictive market, high cost and heightened penalties prevent that from being more common now.

Aren't those weapons notoriously inaccurate and weak? If so, how exactly are they worse than semi-auto pistols?

The weapon is as accurate as the user. Gangsta style, probably won't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside. Trained armed professionals in training scenarios? Probably decently accurate. IRL scenarios will fit in somewhere in the middle, just like all other guns.

FA weapons aren't hard to control once you get used to them. If you have the opportunity to rent one at a range, I suggest doing so, and making sure the RO watching over you is actually understanding that you want to learn, not just waste ammo.

How do you control the recoil of a pistol in full-auto mode? Wouldn't the kick be substantial due to the low mass of the gun and due to the low torque that you can exert on the gun when holding it with only one hand? And if they aren't more accurate gangsta style, the only downside to them is the increased probability of hitting a bystander in a street shooting, which seems like it would account for a very small fraction of shootings. I remember the scare stories on the news about Tec 9s (or similar) when the AWB expired; not much seems to have come of it.

Even if allowing automatic pistols would have a substantial effect on the murder rate, couldn't automatic rifles be allowed?

The bigger problem is that most machine pistols and SMGs are simply too large, when the primary concern of most criminals is concealability and not rate of fire. You do see the occasional idiot criminal who tries carrying around a semi-auto version of a Tec-9 or an Uzi because he saw it in a movie and thinks it looks cool, but my bet is that the bulk probably just makes them more likely to get noticed by a cop.

Honestly the only machine pistol that's probably worth a damn is the Glock 18.

How do you control the recoil of a pistol in full-auto mode? Wouldn't the kick be substantial due to the low mass of the gun and due to the low torque that you can exert on the gun when holding it with only one hand?

Well that is the trick. You use 2 hands. Hilarity would ensue if you tried firing two FA pistols at the same time.

This is why most FA pistols come with a grip for the second hand. Some also come with stocks, amusingly enough.

Most street gang members and drug runners have transitioned to SA pistols. Allowing legal FA capable pistols, like the above mentioned Glock, or Tec-9, or Mac 10, would lead to rapid escalation, since they would then be pretty available through straw purchases. fairly cheaply and easily.

If you would keep some restrictions in place to differentiate them from regular pistols, how is that meaningfully different from what I proposed?

Wouldn't the kick be substantial due to the low mass of the gun and due to the low torque that you can exert on the gun when holding it with only one hand?

Solomonoff's Secret wrote:

Ah, I didn't realize those compact two-handed guns were considered pistols. The more you know...

Full-auto or semi-auto, modern pistol technique involves using both hands. So I'm not sure what you mean by "two-handed guns", unless you're talking about things with specific fore-grips and the like.

Incidentally, attaching a foregrip to the accessory rail on a pistol turns it into a prohibited AOW in the US unless you get the appropriate tax stamp. I've seen people take a foregrip of a rifle and attach it to their pistol just for the lulz, until someone informed them that they'd just committed a felony.

Most street gang members and drug runners have transitioned to SA pistols. Allowing legal FA capable pistols, like the above mentioned Glock, or Tec-9, or Mac 10, would lead to rapid escalation, since they would then be pretty available through straw purchases. fairly cheaply and easily.

If you would keep some restrictions in place to differentiate them from regular pistols, how is that meaningfully different from what I proposed?

I wasn't really disagreeing with what you proposed as it fits within the status quo with the minor detail of the future production ban still in effect.

Most street gang members and drug runners have transitioned to SA pistols. Allowing legal FA capable pistols, like the above mentioned Glock, or Tec-9, or Mac 10, would lead to rapid escalation, since they would then be pretty available through straw purchases. fairly cheaply and easily.

It would only lead to escalation if those weapons are actually more deadly. If not, let gangs switch to them - who cares?

Quote:

If you would keep some restrictions in place to differentiate them from regular pistols, how is that meaningfully different from what I proposed?

Because I was considering (not suggesting) not regulating automatic rifles (or possibly pistols as well, but only rifles presuming pistols would be too deadly) differently than other rifles, whereas you suggested requiring permits and only allowing them in remote areas.

They may not be more deadly to each other, but they would be to bystanders.

As for the other point, I would allow anyone to own an auto rifle, with shooting only allowed in designated remote areas. No usage for self defense, unless it's a very specialized SD oriented firearm with frangible bullets.

Incidentally, attaching a foregrip to the accessory rail on a pistol turns it into a prohibited AOW in the US unless you get the appropriate tax stamp. I've seen people take a foregrip of a rifle and attach it to their pistol just for the lulz, until someone informed them that they'd just committed a felony.

For more lulz, those weapons where that has been done are now considered permanently Title II weapons subject to summary destruction when the ATF hears about it.

You know the recipe: slow-mo shot of black people in hoodies; cut to black gun on a table next to a pile of bullets; scary music and dramatic narrator; "experts"' quotes captioned in jagged white-on-black text.